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Twenty-Four Years of Hoist Liftruck

June 2018 marks 24 years since the inception of Hoist Liftruck. Founder Marty Flaska grew up helping his father in the family forklift repair shop. While there, Flaska developed a passion for the forklift industry, eventually founding Forklift Exchange, a wholesale forklift business, out of his basement in 1980.

With a rapidly-growing wholesale business, Flaska moved into a facility in Addison, Illinois. Soon thereafter Flaska acquired the rights to build Brooklyn, New York-based Silent Hoist and Crane FKS Series under the new name Hoist Liftruck Manufacturing, in 1994.

The businesses’ orders grew and demanded a larger space, so Hoist Liftruck moved to Bedford Park, Illinois in 1998. While there, Hoist Liftruck’s second-ever product, the Titan Series, was built the same year.

In 2000, Hoist Liftruck worked to further solidify its place as a top U.S. manufacturer of material handling equipment by purchasing the rights to Elwell-Parker, a Cleveland, Ohio-based company credited with building the first electric forklift.

The entire Hoist team worked tirelessly for the next 9 years to develop and grow a pneumatic tire line with the launch of the P-Series in 2003, the Neptune marina forklift in 2005 and a full line of intermodal equipment, the Empty Container Handler, Loaded Container Handler and Reach Stacker, introduced in 2009, 2010 and 2011, respectively.

Hoist Liftruck’s next venture was to be the extendable counterweight market. The FR Series was launched in 2014. In 2015 Hoist entered into an exclusive private label agreement with Toyota Material Handling U.S.A. to produce their THD product line. Hoist Liftruck has never feared a new market, and did so again in 2017 with the launch of the Hoist T-Series terminal tractor, positioned to be a market disrupter.

With the help of a dedicated team of employees, many of whom have been with Hoist since the first Addison location, Hoist Liftruck has transformed into a high-capacity forklift and terminal tractor market leader in less than a quarter of a century.